Hear me read the audio version above. I just saw the Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. It’s the pumpkins in the mirror box, speaking plainly. The entryway outside the exhibit had the artist’s statement printed on the wall. She has been making these jazzy pumpkins for a while, inspired by what she called “the dignity of such pumpkins and their external expression of love towards humanity.” I am outside the DMA now, at a table near their cafe, meditating on the pumpkins’ eternality via some thick, well-spiced, very filling pumpkin bisque from the cafe.
The DMA did not pay me to write this, let me say (but call me, y’all. I do have a price). I merely came here and wrote this because I love the place. Paris and I both love it so much so that we’re members, meaning we pay to go somewhere with free admission. The full title of Kusama’s piece is All the Eternal Love I Have for Pumpkins, an iteration of her iconic infinity rooms. The “room” itself is small, a box no bigger than a high-end model Tuff Shed. You know the ones I’m talking about: they have lined up outside the Home Depot and for sale at the State Fair. Per the artist’s intent, only two people are allowed in at a time for a duration of 90 seconds. However, due to humanity’s fallibility, “people” means patrons, and the two-count excludes the museum employee who chaperones your experience. My chaperone was a tall, broad-chested guy I am going to call Brandon (not his real name). Brandon stood as respectfully as one could when one’s role is that of “if you touch this stuff, we’re gonna have a problem,” inside a space no larger than an accessible fitting room at Kohl’s. And that’s being generous. No shade to Ms. Kusama. I dug the vibe. What a juxtaposition - tiny box on the outside, but it goes on forever inside. It’s like a person. Or a TARDIS. But even better than the Doctor’s TARDIS, this one is full of pumpkins in every direction. Inside, the mirrors truly convey the illusion of infinite pumpkins, which must feel like a dream when you’re someone who loves pumpkins as much as Kusama does. From all angles - in front, above, to either side - the pumpkins are ceaseless, boundless, and multiply as I stare at myself. I avert my eyes from my own gaze; I am not trying to unintentionally scry and release The Great Pumpkin or anything. But even looking away purposefully, I remain in my own periphery. I cannot escape it; I cannot escape myself. Inside there, I am infinite. There are me’s beyond infinite me’s and - if you tilt your head just right - there are infinite Brandons too, each one just as polite and patient as the next. Kusama said in the artist’s statement that she “invite[s] you all to see this vast, unbounded field of pumpkins to discover how humans shall live their lives from now on.” She ends it with a plea: “Please unearth your own way of living life.” I bet how people act inside the infinity box is a reasonable approximation of how they live life in all aspects. The couple before me murmured sweet stuff to each other, smiling as they exited. The couple after me was older, my parents’ age, confused by the mandatory phone strap and arguing with the museum employee trying to help them. The exhibit allows photos, but a museum employee explained that the Dallas Museum of Art now requires the safeguard of a rubber phone lanyard around your neck after someone dropped a phone and crushed a pumpkin last time the exhibit came through here. The chaperone in the box is new, too. Previously, Brandon would have stood outside, but after a selfie-related incident in 2017 at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C., that changed. The installation requirements now include a set of human eyes supervising the duos of onlookers during their 90 seconds in the box. Originally, the time allotted was just 45 seconds, but maybe Kusama doubled it so we could let our eyes adjust around the pumpkin security guard. At the time of the selfie incident, Architectural Digest reported: “Every bad stereotype about selfie culture played out in horrifying fashion as a visitor tripped on a pumpkin causing it to shatter while taking a selfie.” Reading this article over my soup, I finally answered the question that had zoomed around in my own mind for my own 90 seconds - did Yayoi Kusama intend for me to experience the infinity of the pumpkins and the infinity of Brandon? Don’t get me wrong (and forgive my intrusive thoughts): if an active shooter kicked off during my 90 seconds, I’d be super glad to have Brandon between myself and the door. He was giving unlikely-hero-who-would-try-to-grab-the-gun, you know? The box even seemed like it could take a few hits before we and the pumpkins were made into pie. So, while his presence, unobtrusive though it was, could be appreciated for practical reasons, it necessarily altered my experience. That’s not to say he ruined anything. Just saying that the AD report on Selfiegate explained, “The installation setup instructs that no security be in the room when visitors come through.” I even double-checked and asked a DMA employee if Brandon’s presence was a museum policy or part of the installation instructions. I was told it was the latter. Allison Peck, a spokesperson for the Hirshhorn, commented to AD regarding Selfiegate, saying, “When you go in there, you close the door, so we can’t speculate on what happened.” Just like the accessible fitting room at a Kohl’s. Based on that statement, the perpetrator very easily could’ve broken the pumpkin in all kinds of ways: by tea bagging it, playing hackey sack while inside, or do y’all remember when planking was a big thing? Whatever it was, it took her less than 90 seconds to wreak enough havoc that I’m paying the price eight years later. The offending guest walked away uncharged and unidentified as the museum spokesperson said, “It was very much an accident.” Fair enough, and financially speaking, sounds like replacing it was no big deal. The sum of All the Eternal Love I Have for Pumpkins is more valuable than the whole of its parts. Kusama reportedly made a replacement and shipped it to the museum while the exhibit was closed for reconfiguration. The cost of replacing one of the pumpkins themselves is “negligible,” per AD. But once they become a Kusama pumpkin, they are valued at more than $800,000 apiece. Suddenly Brandon’s presence makes sense. I couldn’t find any public comments from Kusama on either the D.C. incident or the phone smash at the DMA. In fact, I only found out about the local incident via Facebook comments and hushed whispers of DMA staffers. Instead, I’ll have to look to Kusama’s own words, on the wall at the entrance. There, she asked me to unearth my own way of living life. Coming out of the box, I’d say it’s: observe what’s in front of you, have a feeling, observe that feeling, formulate a thought, then go find a beverage and a table and write about it. While writing this at the cafe, sipping a soda and scraping the last drops of the pumpkin bisque from my bowl, the museum’s own Chef Brian passed by and asked how I liked the soup. A thoughtful question from a thoughtful and creative chef: he told me he used Calabasas squash, the same type of pumpkins in the Kusama exhibit, as the base and added in butternut squash and pumpkin, all brought together with some red curry. He finished it off with dollops of crema that mirror the dots on the work. Rather than blending up some canned Libby’s, this man accentuated the dignity of the pumpkins she used and allowed me to swallow down their external expression of love towards humanity. What I’m trying to say is the soup was REALLY good. Soup consumed, eternality of pumpkins sloshing around my stomach, I had to conclude: Kusama did not mean for the infinity of the pumpkins to be disrupted by a guy with crossed arms, disassociating and trying to shrink his not-insubstantial existence over my shoulder. I am curious as to what Kusama’s feelings are about the piece now with this new performance art addition. She wrote in her autobiography that she loves diving deep into something that she fears - penises, food, infinity - and working with it so much that she becomes part of the work itself. She calls this process “obliteration.” I don’t like being perceived in a way I cannot control - hey, at least I know myself enough to know that. So, being surrounded by infinite mirrors, infinite pumpkins, infinite me’s, and infinite Brandon’s to watch over my shoulder, I found myself obliterated. Part of one larger whole - artist, art, audience, chaperone, experience – all closed in behind a door. To answer her original invitation, I’ll say this: I saw the vast, unbounded field of pumpkins. And inside the box, I discovered the truth of how humans shall live their lives from now on: quite literally with a security guard. He’s lovely and cuddly and not saying a word, but he’s still there, looking - not right over my shoulder, not exactly - but inescapably inspecting every reflection of us both, vast and boundless and never ending.
Go climb inside the box for yourself. “Return to Infinity: Yayoi Kusama” is at the Dallas Museum of Art now through January 18th, 2026. Tickets and info.
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Infinite Brandons
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